Predecessor

How to spell predecessor

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce predecessor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does predecessor mean?

1. nounA person who held a job, role, or position before the current holder, or a thing that came before another in a sequence.

Predecessor in a sentence

• The new manager inherited several problems left by her predecessor.

• This model is faster and lighter than its predecessor.

Where does predecessor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin praedecessor, meaning 'one who has gone before', which was built from the prefix prae- 'before' and the noun decessor, 'one who departs or retires from office'. That decessor in turn came from the verb decedere, 'to go away' or 'to withdraw', formed from de- 'away' and cedere 'to go', the same root that gives us 'proceed', 'recede', and 'succeed'. The original Latin sense was strikingly bureaucratic: a decessor was specifically the official who vacated a post so that a successor could take it over. English borrowed the word through Old French (predecesseur) in the late 1300s, keeping the meaning of a person who held a position before the one who follows. The single helpful clue for the spelling is that family resemblance: just as 'successor' doubles its s, so does predecessor, since both share the same -cess- core from cedere.

How the word is built

• prae- (before)
• de- (away, down)
• cess (go, from Latin cedere 'to go')
• -or (agent noun: one who does)